By DONNA URSCHEL
Most Americans want to see the World Trade Center site rebuilt to heal the wounds of September 11 and to revitalize lower Manhattan, but the site may remain undeveloped for years, maybe even 20 to 30 years, according to architects and architecture critics who gathered at the Library in early November to discuss the Ground Zero project.
The World Trade Center site comprises 16 acres, an enormous urban parcel, and like the site itself, the problems in rebuilding are vast. There are political, economic, social, emotional and design issues that may take years to resolve.
The experts who came to the Library to examine design schemes and discuss the project were Robert Ivy, editor-in-chief of Architectural Record; Paul Goldberger, architectural critic of New Yorker magazine; Raphael Viñoly, architect; and Craig Whitaker, architect and urban planner.
The panel, "Ground Zero: From Dreams and Schemes to Reality," the inaugural program for the Library's new Center of Architecture, Design and Engineering, was held in the Coolidge Auditorium Nov. 1.
The program, introduced by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and C. Ford Peatross, curator of architecture, design and engineering collections, was first in a series from the Library's new Center for Architecture, Design and Engineering, established in 2002 through a bequest from the distinguished American architect Paul Rudolph and the contributions of individuals, foundations, and corporations. The purpose of the center is to focus attention on, encourage support for, and promote the study of the Library's unmatched architecture, design and engineering collections, thereby increasing the public's awareness and appreciation of the achievements of the architecture, design, and engineering professions and their contributions to quality of life.
Ivy, who moderated the panel, gave an overview, with slide presentation, of all the design schemes so far. They include the six official schemes, commissioned by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which were unveiled last July and resoundingly rejected by critics and public alike.
They also include the design schemes that appeared in the New York Times Magazine and New York Magazine, and the schemes featured in an exhibit organized by New York art gallery owner Max Protetch. The Library has acquired the 60-piece Protetch archives and featured several designs in its own exhibition "Witness and Response: September 11 Acquisitions at the Library of Congress."
Yet panel members agree that all these schemes are only a small first step in the process and are far from the desired outcome.
"For all the earnestness and good intentions visible in these designs, the schemes serve better as therapy for their creators than as a valid part of the ongoing process," Goldberger said.
After the design rejections last summer, the LMDC and the Port Authority regrouped with a different approach. Six teams of architects, artists and designers, representing 24 firms, were asked to come up with another set of plans for public viewing in December. It is not likely these new designs will yield a definite plan that can be developed, according to the panelists.
"There is still no program for the site," Goldberger explained. A program describes a vision, how much space is allotted for office, commercial, cultural, residential and memorial usage. Some suggestions were made to the architects but no definite program was specified.
One reason for the confusion and controversy concerning the site is the sheer number of parties involved. There are many different entities with many different interests, according to Goldberger. He gave an overview of the players involved:
- Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a quasi-public agency controlled by governors of two different and often unfriendly states;
- Larry Silverstein, a private developer who leased the towers and is entitled to 11 million square feet of office space;
- Westfield America, the largest purveyor of shopping malls in the world, which leased 400,000 square feet of retail space in the towers;
- Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, a state agency created by New York Gov. Pataki after September 11 to oversee the site's rebuilding;
- Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which controls the subway lines underneath the site;
- Battery Park City Authority, a state agency that controls the enormous development next to the site;
- Department of Transportation, which controls the city streets;
- State Department of Transportation, a different agency that controls West Street, a highway on one side of the site;
- families of those who have died;
- local businesses;
- local residents; and
- the rest of the world.
"All those parties are both a blessing and a curse," Goldberger said. "A blessing, because it is better to have people care about what will happen there. A curse, because there's no way it can be an efficient or rapid process."
Another problem involves leadership. "What we have not yet seen here, and this is really the key issue, is any degree of public sector leadership, to step forward and to demand and inspire a vision," Goldberger said.
The real estate market is another concern. Whitaker said the cost to build a new office building in lower Manhattan runs $65 to $70 per square foot, but the rents in the lower Manhattan are $40 per square foot. "That means no one is going to be building an office building there tomorrow morning," he said.
"Yet we found ourselves … looking at whether these buildings wiggle or wave, whether they soar 200 stories or not, when in fact we may not be building these buildings for 30 years. It's clearly a possibility. Look at Battery Park City right across the street. It has passed its 30th birthday and it's still not done. Cities take a long time to develop," Whitaker said.
He thinks a number of public policy issues must be resolved before any serious planning can proceed. One involves the future location of the PATH station destroyed in the attacks. Whitaker said the public should discuss whether the station remains in the center of the site or is moved to a more convenient, yet more expensive, location near Church Street. Whitaker said its location underpins the architecture that happens later.
Viñoly disagreed. He said the PATH station cannot go through a public review process because it's 50 percent built already.
"Conjecture makes the whole thing more ridiculous. You're claiming the public has the right to think and be informed about how these things are being done, but they do not," Viñoly said. There are fixed geographic and physical facts of the site that should not be up for debate.
Viñoly also wondered whether it was necessary to reserve a certain amount of the site, most likely the seven-acre footprint of the towers, for a memorial. "Is this the only way to go? Why can't the buildings themselves have the role of memorializing?" he asked.
In regard to the memorial, Goldberger said there exists a paradox that goes to the heart of the design problem. "The more the response replicates the wonderful, lovely, casual things of urban life, the less it is special, unique, distinctive and honorific of what happened. Yet the more sad, the more it shows scars, the more difficult it is to resume the day-to-day urban life," he said.
"We're in a problematic moment," Ivy said. "We stand capable of making a place that responds to the city with greatness or devolving towards some sort of mediocrity that none of us is willing to accept."
Donna Urschel is a freelance writer.